Episode 12 – Love to Kill

Given how much weight this final episode needed to carry, I have to admit I’m a bit conflicted. I knew there was no way this episode was going to tie up the current plot thread of the mob boss going after everyone. If anything, it just emphasizes how unimportant it is to both the current narrative and what happens in the flashbacks. Looking back at the season as a whole, I definitely think the material that was adapted shouldn’t have taken as many episodes as it did. While I’ll admit that the final reveals of everything that’s happened in the past are mostly satisfying, it wasn’t worth the incredibly slow and drawn-out pace it took to get here. It really seems like the writer of the season started out with the decision to end the season with said revelations and then worked backwards to try and complete the rest of the series. I don’t know if this is all handled differently in the source material, but that final shot of Château and Ryang-ha taking on this organization didn’t exactly excite me for future installments. At the same time, however, I left with a sense of dramatic and emotional reward.

All this time I was led to believe that Ryang-ha was only interested in Chateau for reasons more related to the plot. When she says that she’s happy that the events of her past weren’t just a dream, I was taken aback by the surprising emotional impact. Château was traumatized by her past and completely forgot about it for the sake of her own sense of mental and emotional stability. So it also makes sense that years later, growing up, she would start to feel the weight of what she did to her as a child to someone who was just trying to help her. The show is still very vague about what exactly Ryang-ha’s original mission was, so it’s hard to see if he was always tasked with getting her to safety or if she was meant to be handed over to someone else.

Again, the show’s plot isn’t necessarily the best, and as mentioned, I think removing some of the bloat in the earlier episodes might have allowed the show to better flesh out the good elements that were actually here. The show manages to convey the emotions that Château and Ryang-ha felt for the original Ryang-ha, but I wish I knew him more as a character. Ultimately, he definitely comes across as a naive yet good-natured kid who was just trying to help people regardless of whether or not he knew what Donny had planned for him all along. There is a sense of tragedy and sadness in him doing his best but unfortunately the show wasn’t really about this guy. He’s always been more interested in the current Ryang-ha and Château, and I think the reason I feel so emotionally invested in things at the end is because of what they’re feeling, rather than the narrative putting me in a state of being. like mind. to his emotional investment. Part of me wants to go back and re-watch the show now that I have this added context of why Ryang-ha was doing the things he did, although I might as well separate some of the REALLY strong narrative conveniences that made them come together in the first place. . I think the show stood out as a mystery and as a throwback to that classic noir, “being in love with danger” aesthetic that we don’t really see a lot of these days. I can see all the building blocks for a successful thriller here, but unfortunately, the show refrains from successfully pulling off the kill.

Classification:

love to kill is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.